do with hiding from the police. “Why you out here walking this late? I can tell you not from this side of the tracks. Don’t you drive?” I didn’t know how to answer that so I just nodded. I wanted to tell him if he had answered his damn phone, he would’ve seen me calling him but it was getting dark and much colder outside. “You didn’t answer my first question. Did you even get my text about our date?” I looked over at the thugged out nigga across from me. I didn’t get not one text about a date. Maybe he was trying to be smooth. My phone buzzed in my pocket, letting me know it needed to be charged. I looked at it and smiled. His text was there, waiting on me to read it. I figured he must’ve sent that while I was on the phone with Shauna. “That your nigga calling you? Tell him we’re busy.” Kenyon glanced over at me. Arrogance could only be so sexy, and in his case, it was.
“Nah, my phone is dying. I haven’t heard yours go off yet. Did you turn it off so your girl couldn’t blow you up?” I was playing the hell out of him, knowing she wouldn’t be calling or checking up on him ever again.
“I need to talk to you about that. Later though.” We pulled to a stop in front of some abandoned house.
“Wow. This is your idea of a first date?” The streets were lined with paper, plastic bottles, and disposable syringes that held God knows what. I was so uncomfortable with kids walking by the car, admiring it with no shoes on their feet, dirty clothes on and nappy-looking hair. Most of their noses were running and they were walking around wiping snot on their sleeves. I had been all through Indianapolis from being at all the different foster homes, but never had I been in the ghetto like I was now. Every other house was abandoned or looked so bad it was on the verge of it. A tall, bald man who looked to be about 60 years old stood on the porch of the house we were parked in front of, as if he was waiting on Kenyon to get out of the car.
“Chill, lock the doors if you’re that scared and no, give me a little bit more credit than that. I can be a gentleman and shit.” I laughed to myself. The only way I’d perceive him as a gentleman is if every sentence he spoke didn’t end with ‘and shit’. “I need to drop this thang off and I’ll be right back. He bent over me and opened the glove compartment, pulling out a .40 caliber glock. My mouth dropped open. It looked exactly like the one I held in my dream. Shit was getting too freaky for me. I watched in silence as Kenyon grabbed two small bags of weed and what I assumed was cocaine from a hidden compartment under the cup holders. “Be right back. Don’t get out of the car.” He locked the door behind him and disappeared into the house. Whether I was more upset at the fact that he brought me on a run with him or that he left me in the car by myself, I wasn’t sure.
It took longer than I expected for Kenyon to come back out of the house and when he did, I was more than ready to go. My stomach was growling and I was drained.
“Is this where you used to stay?” I looked around as he pulled off through another alley. The people on the next block looked more like Kenyon, dressed in Roc jeans and Levi’s with long dreadlocks and hats pulled low on their foreheads.
“This is where I stay now.” My eyebrows shot up. Niggas like him, with the money, the cars and the clothes, usually tried living above their means with three and four story homes that were practically empty. I was shocked that he still lived in the hood. “I stay here to handle business and take care of my people. When I eat, we all eat. Real niggas don’t go live it up while their people are still struggling. I don’t give a fuck how much money we got.” Damn. That was some of the realest shit I had ever heard.
“Does your family still live here? Like your mama and your daddy?” I looked out the window as we pulled up to one of the biggest houses in the neighborhood.
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